Caution! Yoga can wreck your body

Glenn Black, a yoga teacher of nearly four decades, whose devoted clientele includes a number of celebrities and prominent gurus, is in many ways a classic yogi: he studied in Pune, India, at the institute founded by the legendary B. K. S. Iyengar, and spent years in solitude and meditation.

He now lives in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and often teaches at the nearby Omega Institute, a New Age emporium spread over nearly 200 acres of woods and gardens. He is known for his rigor and his down-to-earth style. But this was not why I sought him out: Black, I'd been told, was the person to speak with if you wanted to know not about the virtues of yoga but rather about the damage it could do.

Many of his regular clients came to him for bodywork or rehabilitation following yoga injuries.

At Sankalpah Yoga, the room was packed; roughly half the students were said to be teachers themselves. Black walked around the room, joking and talking. "Is this yoga?" he asked as we sweated through a pose that seemed to demand superhuman endurance. "It is if you're paying attention."

His approach was almost free-form : he made us hold poses for a long time but taught no inversions and few classical postures. Throughout the class, he urged us to pay attention to the thresholds of pain. "I make it as hard as possible," he told the group. "It's up to you to make it easy on yourself." He drove his point home with a cautionary tale. In India, he recalled, a yogi came to study at Iyengar's school and threw himself into a spinal twist.

Black said he watched in disbelief as three of the man's ribs gave way - pop, pop, pop. Then he said something more radical. Black has come to believe that "the vast majority of people" should give up yoga altogether. It's simply too likely to cause harm. Not just students but celebrated teachers too, Black said, injure themselves in droves because most have underlying physical weaknesses or problems that make serious injury all but inevitable.

Instead of doing yoga, "they need to be doing a specific range of motions for articulation, for organ condition," he said, to strengthen weak parts of the body. "Yoga is for people in good physical condition. Or it can be used therapeutically. It's controversial to say, but it really shouldn't be used for a general class."

According to Black, a number of factors have converged to heighten the risk of practicing yoga. The biggest is the demographic shift in those who study it. Indian practitioners of yoga typically squatted and sat crosslegged in daily life, and yoga poses, or asanas, were an outgrowth of these postures. Now urbanites who sit in chairs all day walk into a studio a couple of times a week and strain to twist themselves into ever-moredifficult postures despite their lack of flexibility and other physical problems.

Many come to yoga as a gentle alternative to vigorous sports or for rehabilitation for injuries. But yoga's exploding popularity - the number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 - means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury.

"Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people," Black said. "You can't believe what's going on - teachers jumping on people, pushing and pulling and saying, 'You should be able to do this by now.' It has to do with their egos."

When yoga teachers come to him for bodywork after suffering major traumas, Black tells them, "Don't do yoga."

This is a funny report. People in India have been doing yoga for thousands of years and nothing happened to them. Wonder how comes these guys find it suddenly damaging their bodies?

Any art, exercise, technique etc used wrongly will cause problems to the body. It is a way of life and a discipline just like how shaolin is. If fools try to break bricks, metal plates and concrete blocks without proper instruction in kung fu, they would also "wreck your body".

This is a funny report. People in India have been doing yoga for thousands of years and nothing happened to them. Wonder how comes these guys find it suddenly damaging their bodies?

Any art, exercise, technique etc used wrongly will cause problems to the body. It is a way of life and a discipline just like how shaolin is. If fools try to break bricks, metal plates and concrete blocks without proper instruction in kung fu, they would also "wreck your body".

Seriously what a lame article!

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It is isn't a lame article, neither is the person upon whom the article is based. People in India has been doing yoga with ease because they were in a good physical condition. Today most people do not have that kind of a body and hence it is more damaging than being helpful. Most people, especially in urban areas, cannot be said to a have normal physical body.

One must understand the background to Yoga. Yoga was devised for the hermits, mendicants and saints who lacked physical activities of other worldly class such as farmers, labour or soldiers etc. To keep their body fit in the absence of physical activities, they devised "Hat Yoga" normally referred to as Yoga now a days.

Second most and ultimate aim of Hathyoga is to be able to attain a correct body posture for a prolonged period so that the breath is regulated as they desired. Keeping body healthy was also aimed at regulation of their breathing practices as physical ailment were hindrances.

most of the urbanites and prosperous people in India have become devoid of physical activities and hence yoga has become a remedy.

yes, all medicines do have a bit of poison in at. That is why it is to be taken under supervision. Same is with Hath Yoga.

One must understand the background to Yoga. Yoga was devised for the hermits, mendicants and saints who lacked physical activities of other worldly class such as farmers, labour or soldiers etc. To keep their body fit in the absence of physical activities, they devised "Hat Yoga" normally referred to as Yoga now a days.

Second most and ultimate aim of Hathyoga is to be able to attain a correct body posture for a prolonged period so that the breath is regulated as they desired. Keeping body healthy was also aimed at regulation of their breathing practices as physical ailment were hindrances.

most of the urbanites and prosperous people in India have become devoid of physical activities and hence yoga has become a remedy.

yes, all medicines do have a bit of poison in at. That is why it is to be taken under supervision. Same is with Hath Yoga.